WHITE GOT IT RIGHT

In the summer of 1948 Elwyn Brooks "E.B." White, a Pulitzer Prize winner, sat in a New York hotel room and sweltering in the summer heat and intense humidity, and wrote a remarkable, pristine essay, "Here is New York." Perceptive, funny, and nostalgic, the author's stroll around Manhattan - with the reader arm-in-arm - remains the quintessential love letter to the city, written by one of America's foremost literary figures. The New York Times has chosen "Here is New York" as one of the ten best books ever written about the grand metropolis.

However, there is something rather unsettling in E B White's observations on the changes that could occur to New York City's future following World War II. Quoting from his text:-


"The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now: in the sound of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition."


On the morning of September 11th, 2001, his prophesy was regrettably and tragically proven to be accurate. God Bless those innocents who perished.